From There To Here
Laura Gutierrez · 56 min
After migrating from Colombia to the US, then New Zealand, then Australia, Laura Gutierrez discovers that the hardest journey was never across borders — it was inward.
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At fifteen, Laura Gutierrez stood at a crossroads. A school exchange trip to the UK opened her eyes to a world beyond Colombia, and she decided she would not stay. What she was running from was not her culture itself, but the way festivity became an excuse for her stepfather's drinking, a pattern she did not want to accept as inevitable. She wanted to build her own life on her own terms. For nearly a decade in the United States, she found that freedom. She earned money, bought a car, lived alone, and learned to listen more than she spoke. She moved from Denver to New York, from graphic design work to understanding how people actually live in a place, not just how tourists see it. When immigration law forced her to leave the US, she looked for another country that offered a path to permanent residency. Australia seemed logical. She spoke English. It shared cultural roots with the countries she knew. It should have been easier. It wasn't. Sharing a language masked something she had not anticipated: culture runs deeper than words. Australia hit her differently than expected, and she had to start learning from zero again.
The pandemic sharpened what she had been avoiding. When travel became expensive and difficult, the reality of being thirty-six hours away from her family settled in. Her career achievements, which had driven her for two decades, suddenly felt less important than the connection she had let slip. She realised she had been running toward something, freedom, growth, proof, when maybe she needed to also turn back toward home. Now, in her thirties, Laura understands that home is not a destination you find by choosing the right country. It requires time, spiritual presence, emotional connection, and the willingness to be fully there. She has learned that you cannot leave yourself behind by moving. The lessons you need to learn will find you whether you stay or go. What changes is how you learn them, and whether you have the courage to keep evolving into new versions of yourself.
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